The Church as Counterculture

The question, What does it mean to be \u27the church\u27? has always been among the most controversial and of vital concern to political, economic, and ecclesial leaders alike. How it is answered influences whether Christianity will be a force for legitimating or subverting existing secular relations of power, influence, and privilege. The Church as Counterculture enters the debates on Christian identity, purpose, and organization by calling for the churches to reclaim their roles as communities of disciples -distinct and distinctive groups formed by the priorities and practices of Jesus-to constitute a countercultural reality and challenge to secular society and existing power relations. The notion of the church as a countercultural community of disciples confounds many conventional divides within the Christian family (liberal and conservative, church and sect), while forcing redefinition of commonplace categories like religion and politics, sacred and secular. The contributors to this book-theologians, social theorists, philosophers, historians, Catholics and Protestants of various backgrounds-reflect this shifting of categories and divisions. The book provides thought-provoking Christian perspectives on war and genocide, racism and nationalism, the legitimacy of liberalism and capitalism, and more. This book challenges both the mind and the conscience. It tests contemporary theology against the radical values of the Sermon on the Mount. And although it provides more questions than answers, those questions cut to the quick of what it means to be a Christian in today\u27s world-challenging our complacencies, questioning our assumptions, and confronting us with the frightening possibility that we may, in fact, be so mesmerized by the idols of the marketplace, the media, and the state, that we simply no longer know what it means to honor God above all other things or what it means to truly love our neighbors as ourselves. - Robert Inchausti, author of Thomas Merton\u27s American Prophec